About the work
“Die Wut, die bleibt” (The Anger That Remains) is a novel by the Austrian author Mareike Fallwickl, published by Rowohlt in 2022, which became a bestseller. The director Jorinde Dröse created a stage version with Johanna Vater that premiered at the Salzburg Festival on 18 August 2023, as a co-production with Schauspiel Hannover, where it opened in September 2023. The publisher Rowohlt Theater Verlag also represents a second stage version by Lisa Wildmann.
Plot
In the middle of the pandemic, Helene, a mother of three, gets up from the dinner table without a word after a casual question from her husband Johannes and throws herself from the balcony. Her best friend Sarah, a childless writer, steps in to help the family through the first period and is herself drawn into the grind of housework and care that had crushed Helene. Helene's daughter Lola turns her grief into anger against herself, until she and her friend Sunny, together with two other young women, begin to fight back against men who commit sexual violence. The story is told alternately from Sarah's and Lola's perspectives.
Cultural significance
The novel deals with mental load, the unequal distribution of care work, beauty norms and violence against women, and was praised by the FAZ and the taz. The Salzburg premiere ended in a standing ovation, and the later Hamburg production at the Thalia Theater became an audience hit. The book drew attention when Michael Lindner, leader of the SPÖ in Upper Austria, cited reading it as one reason for his withdrawal from front-line politics in November 2024.